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In our country, there is a general feeling that only positions backed by actual fact should drive public policy. ‘Religion’ is perceived to be the realm of personal opinion. Even Christians tend to accept the view that people are allowed to have their opinion, but they aren’t allowed to impose that opinion on others. The result is that many Christians refrain from acting ‘politically’ because they see their own beliefs as nothing more than ‘mere opinion.’

Secularists tend to be people who have dispensed with ‘religion’ altogether, and like to think that they are entirely ‘fact driven.’

When these ideas collide, we observe something very curious: secular humanists conclude that they can advocate for anything that they want in the public sphere, because nothing they believe is ‘religious, ‘ while distinctly Christian viewpoints are forbidden from entering the public domain, since those will be, by definition, ‘religious.’ And again, even Christians gravitate to that view.

This tends to lead to debates and discussions and policy proposals that take the ‘facts’ of the secularists as the starting points. We are expected to proceed on their terms. And why not? Surely without the ‘religious’ component, those ‘facts’ are as close to actually being real descriptions of the world as one could get, right?

Most people believe that this commandment represents sound morality, even if they are not Christians. Nonetheless, it seems that this moral precept is forgotten once we start talking politics. And no wonder: Americans have been making up ‘right and wrong’ for themselves for quite a while. Obviously it was only a matter of time before it seeped into our national mindset.

A good example of this in action is the current attempt by the Democrats to extend the payroll tax cut, ‘paying for it’ by having the ‘rich’ pay their ‘fair share.’

That we are talking about theft becomes clearer when one considers exactly what the ‘payroll tax’ is. We are talking about the portion of one’s income that goes directly into Social Security. Your contributions, in turn, ensure that when you retire, you will be able to draw a steady check.

Now, the liberals tend to target the rich to fund a variety of their favorite programs, and many of those times there ostensibly is some ‘public’ benefit of them. For example, we might put public infrastructure, such as roads and bridges, in this category. Usually, though, the program favors smaller, special interest, populations. The appearance of a socialistic transfer of wealth from the rich to the poor becomes more profound the more targeted the program.

But the funding of the payroll tax cut by the rich really takes the cake. It is one of those few instances of a government service where the individual directly benefiting from the service is also the one funding it. Heck, it might be the only example of such a thing.

To have the rich pay for the payroll tax cut is to ask them to directly fund the retirements of the rest of the population, in a direct and transparent manner. The ‘99%’ are demanding that the ‘1%’ pay for a service that only the ‘99%’ will benefit from, without themselves contributing a dime. There is no ‘public’ benefit; the ‘special interest’ group just turns out to be exceptionally large.

This is stealing.

Stealing is wrong.

Therefore, this is wrong.

The real kick in the pants here is that while the ‘poor’ and ‘middle class’ are getting behind the highway robbery of their ‘richer’ countrymen, they are actually robbing their future selves. Since the amount of your contribution is correlated with how much you receive in your retirement account, by continuing to not pay the payroll tax, you are decreasing the amount you will ultimately receive. Continue reading →

Look at this delightful phrase: ” [the EU]…will collapse under the weight of its own illegitimacy.”

It occurs to me that, due to their opposition to tyranny, atheists like Pat are actually in the same boat as biblical Christians, though seemingly at opposite poles, and our plight — as well as our tragic inability to grasp it — is as described by Martin Niemöller in that famous quote

“In Germany, they came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist…[etc]”

A sincere and questioning mind will, absent bias and external obstructions, come round to the truth. Atheism can be a painful first step in questioning received wisdom, but it may never be the last.

National unity means joining in common cause with everyone who opposes the common enemy, at least in the opposition to that enemy and until he is vanquished. There are no superiors or inferiors in that struggle, just people yearning for their share of the rights and voice that are rightfully theirs. Their God-given rights as we say. The term “God-given” may offend some people with claims to “higher enlightenment,” but consider that it was precisely the notion that man can create rights out of thin air that gave birth to the despotic EU — just as the corollary notion that central banks – part of that same entity — can create money out of thin air contributed mightily to our current financial malaise. Those perverse ideas are twins.

I doubt it has ever occurred to Pat that his militant atheism is part of the cultural Marxism that has been foisted on Europe for generations by the very elites he rails against. After all, the Fabian Society was founded (in London) for a twofold purpose:

1. to spread socialism, and

2. to eliminate Judeo-Christian culture.

Today’s elites are the spiritual and ideological heirs to that agenda, and yet, many of their putative opponents are unwittingly assisting them in their quest to destroy our Western culture and heritage by assailing Judeo-Christianity.

Pat is part of our landscape, his words are too powerful to ignore, and he is absolutely right that the EU has stolen from Europeans. But he needs to understand that opposing only the political agenda of the Imperial Powers he rails against is an incomplete task — even a futile one — unless we oppose their social agenda as well. Opposition to the enemy’s destructiveness is a vital first step. Railing against constructive faith that ultimately can replace what that agenda has torn asunder negates that opposition.

This is because a vital second step is restoring what the enemy has destroyed, and the will to restore it comes in no small measure from our inner spiritual resources invested in a common vision of national health and prosperity.

The myth that atheism was a vital component of the Enlightenment is false. There were in fact two Enlightenments, one that sought to reconcile the thought of Aristotle, for example, with Christianity, as Lawrence de Medici had done in Florence, and the other Enlightenment – embodied, for example, by Voltaire, which taught that religion itself had held back progress and needed to be abolished. Devotees of the latter branch cite, by way of support, the difficulties that some scientists like Copernicus and Galileo, have encountered with the Vatican. Yet they seem unaware that Roger Bacon’s pioneering work on the scientific method was in fact sponsored by Pope Clement IV.

Those spiritual resources we will need to rebuild our civilization once the enemy is overcome are, to paraphrase Pat, like the air we breathe and the water we drink.

My mom used to give me haircuts, but she was always a little nervous and often nicked me in the ear with the scissors. That really hurt.

This haircut on the Greek bonds will hurt a LOT MORE.

Quote (see link below):

In essence, the haircut on Greek debt [haircut: partial default, in this case, decreed by law. DH] is a signal to investors that they should require a much higher rate of return on the debt of all of the PIIGS. This is going to make the financial collapse of all of the PIIGS much more likely.

Absolutely. Not only that, the Greek government officials and Greeks benefitting from government largesse have lived high on the hog for years, and for them, that is an unalienable entitlement. Many of them get nasty when someone touches their entitlements. They burn tires, wreck vehicles, throw stones through windows, etc, breaking things they can’t afford to replace.

Now that Europe has given a 50% haircut on their sovereign debt, many will figure they can continue to live like kings and the next time around, good old Germany and the ECB and EFSF will just bail them out again, with more “haircuts” for their bonds and more leverage. Dream on. The German people are already PO’d! And with good reason.

As this author points out, the party can’t go on forever. They are tightening the noose around Europe’s neck.

“Leverage” in this context means that the banks will be able to lend 4-5 times more than before simply by issuing more credit — NOT MONEY, because they have no money at the bottom line of the balance sheets, only debt. Now even before this re-leveraging, they were leveraged to the max and already issuing loans against nothing but hot air. That’s the same as printing money, as they did in the failed Weimar Republic. Weimar failed BECAUSE they did this, but the money printing was sold as a “solution” to their problem. Now they’re trying a little — no a LOT — of hair of the dog that bit them in the butt before, except not just Germany but most of Europe. How short their memories are.

This money the banks are lending is money they don’t have. It is debt, the opposite of money. They are dealing in red numbers, paying off red numbers with more red numbers. That is like climbing higher up the mountain to reach the bottom. GUARANTEED it won’t work and when the crash comes it will be dramatic, people will get hurt and Greeks will be back burning tires again.

Maybe someone will hire them to do that. They’re getting pretty proficient at it.

The site linked to below (The Economic Collapse) had predicted just a day or two ago that the “haircut” on Greek debt would increase the chances of recovery of the PIIGS. It didn’t take long for that prophecy to be realized, as they report today.

Here are my 2 cents, incl a prediction of my own. I hope it turns out to be wrong:

According to the Greek language online newspaper “Express,” the European “leaders” met with the bankers before this “haircut” edict was handed down. They had originally spoken of a 21% hiarcut, but they were faking. They knew it would be 50% but they had to soften up the bankers.

It is my humble opinion that they made these bankers a deal they couldn’t refuse. First they TOLD them the haircut would be 50%, at variance with what they had said (they had lied, to put it nicely).

According to this Greek article, the rip-off to the European banks amounted to 67.5 billion euros, or 20$ less that the Greek government would have to pay.

My prediction (I truly hope I am wrong):

The European powers (remember, this is the group that exported “democracy” the the Arabs, but they won’t give their own people democracy. THEY make all the decisions) will eventually get around to utilizing one of their many financial tentacles — e.g., the ECB, the EFSF (European Financial Stability Facility) or other, perhaps one to be created — either to BUY PIIGS bonds outright or to financially assist private buyers to buy them (using both European and US public funds — see last link below!), in order to circumvent the market. This is because no private person or entity will eventually touch a Greek bond, for ex, with a 3 meter pole, unless enticed with promises of public money.

I say this because I know:

1–the past behavior of the European elites

2–their Marxist philosophy underlying that behavior.

The real raîson d’être of the European Empire (European union) and its tentacle agencies has always been to redistribute wealth. Unlike the Soviet Union, they no longer can do that — for political reasons — openly, from one group to another. But by pretending to “stabilize” Europe, they can distribute the wealth from northern countries with a sound work ethic to southern countries with no palpable work ethic at all. [Footnote: this is analogous to the way the US government orchestrated our current financial crisis by first forcing the banks to lend to the insolvent under the infamous CRA, another wealth redistribution scheme].

By allowing the fiscally irresponsible Greece to join the Euro Zone, they knew they would ultimately be able to transfer billions of euros of wealth to that country under the pretext of “stabilization.” They won’t quit even now that they have literally destabilized the whole continent by their so-called “stabilization measures.”

They have all the power and they will continue to rob the citizens of each member country until they — and we — are dirt poor or until the people rise up and throw off their yoke.

It will be a true European Spring and the elites will not be in charge this time.

I received an email from a friend, incl several warnings about the Occupy [somewhere] movement, written by well-known conservative authors and exhorting conservatives to shun the Occupy Wall St. [or wherever] movement because it is linked to Obama groups and pals like ACORN and Van Jones and is a false flag movement.

Now I agree that we must be careful whom we stand with, because we may be suggesting to people that we agree with the Left — unless we are perfectly clear where we stand!

Consider this: The Left has been pretending to stand with good people ever since day one, while in fact standing with Satan. Stealth is their middle name.

I believe it may be time to turn the tables on them.

Yesterday, I got an email from a TX friend with an attachment showing a pamphlet on the “Occupy Houston” movement.

His point seemed to be that their literature was not well written and that it wasn’t clear what their goals were, so maybe they are bad guys to be avoided.

Ya know what? To me, that is a perfect opportunity for us to go to work. Because they can’t control the sidewalks and there’s no way they can control me.

If I lived in that part of the country and had a few extra hours, I’d make up a large poster reading “BRING BACK THE FREE MARKET” or “NO MORE SOCIALISM, MR. PRESIDENT,” or “SOLYNDRA, THE FRUITS OF ‘STIMULUS’ ” or the like, and I would unabashedly bring it along to the rally and hold it high. Look, if this is a false flag movement and they are just pretending to be on our side, then who would dare to stop me?

This morning I was listening to NHK News from Japan, and they had an international segment featuring the Occupy Wall St. movement in the US.

Unsurprisingly, the people they interviewed said nothing remotely suggesting they were socialist sympathizers, quite the opposite.

I almost fell off my chair when one lady said:

“When Barrack Obama was elected, we assumed that because he was a black man, he would do all he could to help the poor and underprivileged. He has done none of that.”

Yes, yes, I understand Van Jones and ACORN may have ties to the movement.

So what?

When I was in Lancaster, I attended a Tea Party rally and there were some people there who obviously were trying to infiltrate. I suspect they were from ACORN.

Here is what I don’t get: The LEFT infiltrates us all the time and we can see it happening and take it for granted.

Yet if a conservative wants to do the same back to them, all of a sudden, that “taints” us. Funny thing. The Left isn’t “taintable,” but conservatives are? Are we really that weak minded that getting too close to a lefty will rub off on us?

Well, look, if being around a bunch of lefties taints you — that is, influences you — then you are not well enough grounded in your conservatism and your Christian faith to leave your home.

As for me, I say with Paul: I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I’ve committed unto Him against that day.

But if you are so timid in your faith and politics, and afraid of being misled by some half-baked Marxists who don’t know even a tenth of what the average conservative knows about history and economics, here is what you need to do:

Don’t ever have anything to do with a leftist. He’ll rub off on you.

Don’t go to town hall meetings and express your views. These meetings are full of lefties. It might rub off.

And don’t take part in surveys, online or off. The other respondents may be leftists. Ooooh, creepy!

Don’t write letters to the editor. The publication in which they are published is probably left of center and you might be thought of as a lefty. What would your conservative friends think of you?

Don’t go to the polls to vote. The polls are full of lefties and might persuade you to pull the wrong lever.

On the other hand, if you know what you believe and why, then go right ahead and attend any meeting or rally you darned well please and let people know how you think. Go ahead and listen to their misguided statements but be prepared to counter them – without fear, without anger, with love. You are dealing with the lost – with the weak, the ignorant. They’re in a much more precarious position than you will ever be. You can be their lighthouse. Why would you want to miss that opporunity? So, assuming you are educated on the issues (don’t try until you are), don’t be afraid to speak your mind and don’t be afraid to hold a poster advertising your view of why America is in a mess. These misguided lefties are the very ones you need to minister to, lovingly, compassionately and in God-given faith and wisdom. The chances are, many, maybe even most, will agree with you by the time you have told them what you think and why.

Consider that one of the main reasons they are in the dark is that conservatives have left them there.

We are the ones who have failed America. It’s time to grow a spine and do our job.

“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” John Adams

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed Declaration of Independence

The last few months I’ve seen some strident statements of opposition against libertarians by conservatives. I’m on several email lists where I’m seeing such commentary and of course its on the web, as in this example. I personally didn’t detect a huge uptick in libertarian sentiment, but alright. I describe myself as a ‘constitutional libertarian’ and in explaining why I hope that I can shed light on what I believe are the true reasons for a rise in libertarianism- among Christians in particular. I can’t speak for them all, of course, but I think I recognize in some of their commentary some of my own thinking.

So, to begin with, let me make two important observations. First of all, when one thinks ‘libertarian’ one might immediately think licentious. However, the two are not identical terms. This leads to the second observation, the direction by which one arrives at libertarianism greatly impacts the flavor of that libertarianism. There can be no question that there are a great mass of individuals, who calling themselves libertarians, really are just people who wish to engage in whatever depravity that they want, with no one to tell them otherwise or worse- stop them. By my observation, the people coming from this direction are really your typical atheist secular humanist progressive who is perfectly happy to foist as much government as people can bear onto themselves and others- in the form of nationalized health care, eg- just so long as they can have sex with whatever and whomever they want and smoke whatever happens to come across their path.

However, someone coming at ‘libertarianism’ from the other direction, say, from a Christian perspective and a conservative, is not looking for a reason to misbehave. This is why I led off with the John Adams quote. ‘Moral and religious people’ will continue to be ‘moral and religious’ whatever freedoms or restrictions are placed on them by the government. I might say: “Libertarianism was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the [government] of any other.” There are any number of forms of government that can work with a ‘moral and religious people.’ For an amoral or immoral or anti-moral or non-religious or anti-religious people, no kind of government is going to work for the long haul. Continue reading →

Millions of Muslims live in Europe but refuse to integrate. The EU wants even more. And now, Muslims countries to join the EU?

by Don Hank

There has been much speculation as to the reasons for the US and NATO interfering in the internal affairs of Libya, the US and the rest of the West interfering in Egypt, the UN taking sides in an election dispute in the Ivory Coast and using deadly force to install the Muslim candidate, while doing nothing to stop the slaughter of 1,000 Christians, etc.

There is the old knee-jerk accusation that it is all about oil. Yet Egypt has almost no oil. Neither does the Ivory Coast.

Remember that the EU has been importing Muslims into Europe at the rate of almost a million a year and a realistic estimate forecasts a Muslim majority in about 15-25 years in that continent.

Also recall that the Fabian Society (of which Bush pal Tony Blair is a member) was founded in the 1880s for the purpose of spreading socialism worldwide, and one of their immediate goals was to eliminate Christianity. Now do you suppose engineering a Muslim majority may help achieve that goal?

Also recall that every major conflict in the Middle East since the Iraq invasion has resulted in the murder, exile and/or persecution of indigenous Christian populations that were protected until the West got involved!

This is all circumstantial evidence, you say.

But for many years, an expansion of the EU into Africa has been in the works, and now a high-ranking EU official is recommending “deep and broad” integration with Africa, ostensibly to expand the EU “market.” This means, long-term, that African nations are now to be integrated into the EU. Which in turn means that eventually the Schengen agreement (open borders) would be extended to Islamic Africa.

Remember that the EU started out as an innocent little agreement (the EEC, European Economic Community – with the emphasis ostensibly on the market), then morphed into the EC (European Community — note that “economic” is no longer the focus, not even part of the name), and now is a supranational government whose top ranking officers (the European Commission) are not even elected. We used to call that kind of arrangement a dictatorship. We also used to call the kind of wealth redistribution policies this government practices communism.

My, how times have changed. Good thing communism is “dead.”

The EU’s William Hague wants to “broaden and deepen” ties with N. Africa:

Think long and hard about the answer to that question. There’s evidence that he does.

by Don Hank

An interview with Larry Grathwohl, a former member of the Weather Underground, reports on a meeting with these his former associates. The group leaders discussed plans to set up re-education camps (concentration camps) in the South once they had taken over the US. When then-member Grathwohl asked what would be done with the approximately 25 million who could not be re-educated, the leaders responded “they would have to be eliminated.”

“Meaning killed,” clarifies Larry.

Does Obama disagree with any of the dangerous, insane ideas brought to light in the below-linked video? He is close pals with William Ayers of the Weather Underground, who was involved in a bomb plot that killed people. Following his outrageous, politically motivated acquittal, Ayers said he only wished he could have killed more. Does Obama disagree? Really? It’s a vital question and no one is sure of the answer.

Consider this irony: William Ayers and wife Bernardine Dohrn went to Egypt prior to the revolt that toppled Mubarak. They are believed to have had a hand in fomenting the revolution. After all, when 2 known friends of the president of the US say to a group of militants “the President will support you,” that carries a lot of clout. Now, to reiterate: William Ayers was one of the Weather Underground leaders who agreed that 25 million Americans would have to be killed if his group took over the US.

Yet, his close friend and ally Barack Obama said in his propaganda effort to support the Middle Eastern uprisings, that our intervention was humanitarian and that the dictators there (Mubarak, Ghadaffi) are killing citizens.

So, Barack Obama, who supports the homicidally minded Ayers, is trying to make us believe he cares about human life in Africa?

Do you believe him?

Brainwashed Americans simply don’t understand the far left.

We witnessed the fall of the Soviet Union, which killed around 20 million there . We watched passively as Mao killed an estimated 70 million in China. Facts incredibly well guarded in America

Yet today, only a few decades later, by electing a president whose ideology is very much in line with the Soviets’ and the Chinese communists’, we are flirting with something possibly more deadly still than the ideologies of Stalin and Mao, who killed a total of up to 90 million between them. Let that sink in.

America has suffered a potentially deadly dumbing-down at the hands of the Democrats, the RINOs, the false conservatives, the controlled opposition (including many clergy) and the useful idiots.